District 9 Review

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 08.14.2009

Is District 9 a movie that brings us challenging science fiction or is it just more dumbed down sci-fi for the common masses?

Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
Cinematography by Trent Opaloch
Music Composed by Clinton Shorter

Cast
Sharlto Copley ... Wikus Van De Merwe
David James ... Koobus Venter
Eugene Khumbanyiwa ... Obesandjo 7
Vanessa Haywood ... Tania Van De Marwe
Jason Cope ... Grey Bradnam
Mandla Gaduka ... Fundiswa Mhlanga
William Allen Young ... Dirk Michaels

Runtime: 112 min
Rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language



Following Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (bubble gum fun) and Terminator: Salvation (a rescue movie), I was beginning to wonder if there was going to be an intelligent science fiction movie in theaters this year. With District 9, my prayers have been answered. The movie has, at its core, a very interesting science fiction-like premise.

28 years before the movie begins, an extraterrestrial space craft arrived in our orbit and eventually stopped, hovering over Johannesburg for no apparent reason. News crews from all over the planet showed up while military forces flew to the ship and drilled their way in where they found a hoard of aliens, malnourished and starving. Since the world was watching, the government had no choice but to offer the aliens shelter and nourish them back to health. Over the next twenty years, relations between the aliens and the human race reached critical levels. People in Johannesburg did not want the aliens (nicknamed Prawns) in their city anymore and, thanks to the living conditions the aliens were forced into, they were unable to adapt to our world either. By the time the movie starts they are living in a slum, outcasts in every sense of the word.

The movie makes a brilliant decision, setting up the back story as a hybrid with documentary mixed with live action footage. The documentary is shot using footage from news channel broadcasts, security camera footage and a video shot by the corporation called Multinational United (MNU), a private organization contracted by the government to control alien affairs. We are introduced to a low level employee of MNU named Wikus (Sharlto Copely) at the start when he receives a surprising promotion, tasked with going into District 9 and evicting the aliens. MNU has heard the cries of the human population and is determined to move the aliens out of city limits to a new shelter outside of Johannesburg called District 10. The look of District 9 and the almost concentration camp look of District 10 bears a close relation to apartheid, still a very real problem in South Africa. The underlying fear in this movie is racial segregation, shown here as alien segregation. One African man made the comment “if they were from another nation, it would be okay but they are not even from our planet.” It is sliding from one form of racism to another.

What makes this science fiction film great is the conundrum of citizens wanting the aliens off our planet while the MNU wants them to stay. The aliens, while a nuisance, arrived with many sophisticated weapons aboard their ship. The governments of the world want these advanced weapons but the weapons are only able to be utilized by the aliens. MNU is doing everything it can, by any means necessary, to find out how these weapons work and the aliens are nothing more than collateral damage along the way. Most of the aliens want to leave our planet as much as the humans want them gone but they are held down, against their will, and any attempt to leave is met with resistance.

The only character we have to relate to is Wikus, making his way into District 9 to serve the notices. He preens for the camera crew following the evictions every chance he gets until he comes across a home with a large chemistry setup and finds a vial of fluid. Some of the fluid splashes onto him and, after an accident, it ends up mixing with his blood through a cut on his arm. When he finds himself transforming into a creature similar to the aliens, he becomes a wanted man. We are told at the beginning of the movie by eye witnesses Wikus is a traitor to his own people and here we find out how this pencil pusher becomes both public enemy number one and the most valuable commodity to MNU and the world’s governments.

Wikus is played by Sharlto Copely, a non-professional actor, who is asked to mostly play off aliens with little interaction to actual humans. The main alien he ends up communicating with after the incident was christened with the human name Christopher Johnson. Christopher has been working in secret for the last twenty years, building a space craft under his house that will fly him and his young son to the mother ship where he can start it and escape the prison his race have found themselves enslaved in. The movie then becomes a race against time - Sharlto trying to change back into a normal human, Christopher wanting to return home and MNU wanting to master the advanced weaponry that fell into their laps. Using only documentary footage wouldn’t allow us to see everything so the movie occasionally switches over to live action to see what Sharlto is doing and to understand what it is Christopher is trying to accomplish. It shouldn’t work but does and creates a compelling and smart story.

There are minor problems with the script including the fact the fluid that changes Sharlto is something needed to fuel the ship. It makes no sense to me and is not explained further other than Christopher saying “there is only one thing that could do that.” Part of great science fiction is explaining these occurrences in an interesting way but here it is a McGuffin used to further the plot. It is also never explained how the aliens and humans can understand each other’s languages as clearly as they do, although it can be argued living together for twenty years should make everyone understand each other. There is also a gang of Nigerian thugs led by a man named Obesandjo who wants to eat the aliens in hopes they will gain the power to use the weapons on their own. I assume it is added to allow more violence and action to stretch out the running time. These are small, minimal problems and none stand in the way of a great film.

For the sci-fi tech hounds, there are the weapons. The guns are powerful enough to blow a person to pieces and there is also a robot an alien can enter and use in a way most comparable to the ED-209 robot from Robocop. For the technical excellence, there is a lot of bang for the buck. Director Neill Blomkamp based District 9 on his short film Alive in Joburg, a straight mockumentary about the aliens in Johannesburg. When his opportunity to direct the big screen adaptation of the videogame Halo fell through, he was given the chance to make his short into a feature length presentation and held nothing back. With Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) behind him, Blomkamp received all the help he could hope for with Jackson’s WETA studios who went above and beyond the call of duty for this movie. The smaller budget movie (rumored to be around $30 million) looks like it was shot for three times the amount thanks to the awesome creature work creating grotesque aliens that are very cool looking at the same time. The movements and action is fluid and visceral. It is some of the best technical alien work I have seen in a long time.

Finally, the best science fiction work takes real world problems and events and transposes them to the world of the story. Two decades after the “end” of apartheid, more than a million South African blacks live without basic human services. Even today, violence breaks out between groups in South Africa and this movie bears a close resemblance to the hatred still existing in that area of the world. District 9 builds on those real world problems and offers its own solutions and views while sprinkling the movie with some fantastic science fiction ideas. It speaks volumes a novice director, with a non-professional lead actor and a modest budget, produced the best science fiction film I have seen in years. Forget the bubble gum sci-fi action flicks, District 9 is set to become a classic.

The 411: Neill Blomkamp proves he is a force to be reckoned with. In District 9, he has crafted a smart, stylistic science fiction film trumping every other film in its genre to come out in the last couple of years. The alien design is solid and the weapons and machinery are cool. However, what makes this film so great is the fact it is a smart film containing real world problems, revealing something about ourselves, regardless of how dark and sobering the truth is. The best science fiction holds up a mirror to the world and allows us to see a distorted version of ourselves. It is not a perfect movie but it is fantastic science fiction.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]